Publication Procedure of Graduation Theses

A regular or external student must submit their graduation thesis for defence along with an electronic licence (permit) authorising the preservation and publication of the thesis on the Internet in the digital archives of Tartu University Library. The non-exclusive licence must be submitted in the electronic (PDF) file of the thesis and is the prerequisite for allowing the author to defend the thesis. The non-exclusive licence does not need to be signed – consent may be placed at the very end of the thesis.

The author grants the university a permission to electronically publish the graduation thesis via the university’s web environment under the Creative Commons licence CC BY NC ND 3.0, which allows, by giving appropriate credit to the author, to reproduce, distribute the work and communicate it to the public, and prohibits the creation of derivative works and any commercial use of the work. If a fixed-term restriction has been established on the publication of a graduation thesis by a directive of the vice dean for academic affairs, the author allows the university to make the graduation thesis public after the expiry of the restriction.

In exceptional circumstances, the author of the thesis may demand that its disclosure be restricted. If the author feels that the thesis cannot be electronically published due to the their economic rights, the Personal Data Protection Act or state or trade secrets or other classified information, the author must, before submitting the thesis for defence, apply to the vice dean of the faculty for establishment of restrictions on the publication of the thesis. If electronic publication of a thesis is later possible, the vice dean must specify in the directive the date and year as of which the thesis may be published electronically. In such an event the author specifies in the non-exclusive licence the date and year as of which the University is allowed to electronically publish the thesis.

If a thesis earns a positive grade at the defence, it is saved in the DSpace digital archives of Tartu University Library within three months. In addition, the faculty may establish a procedure whereby theses approved for public defence are made available on the website of the structural unit before the defence.